The Khan Read online

  Praise for The Khan

  ‘With The Khan, Saima Mir delivers a once-in-a-generation crime thriller and in Jia Khan has created a female South-Asian protagonist who is fierce, passionate and absolutely compelling. This is not simply black-and-white on the page. It’s blood. It’s emotion. It’s tears, anger, betrayal and revenge. An outstanding debut which deserves to be read widely.’

  A. A. Dhand, author of Streets of Darkness

  ‘A tremendous debut (Jia Khan is a fascinating, multi-layered protagonist). Timely, authentic, immersive and powerful. Hints of The Godfather. SUPERB.’

  Will Dean, author of the Tuva Moodyson mysteries

  ‘Bold, addictive and brilliant.’

  Stylist, Best Fiction 2021

  ‘Compelling and gritty.’

  Cosmopolitan

  ‘Saima Mir’s debut, The Khan, traces its lineage to such classics as Mario Puzo’s seminal work The Godfather… Mir’s novel pulls no punches, taking aim at cultural stereotypes, sacred cows and the attitudes and morality of the community within which the story is based. The book operates on various levels: crime family saga, character study and an exploration of clan-run organised crime. A sterling debut.’

  Vaseem Khan, author of The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra

  ‘A brilliant debut from an exciting new voice for our times. A thrilling book with a thrilling hero in Jia. Brava.’

  Imran Mahmood, author of You Don’t Know Me

  ‘Superb. In particular the character development is excellent. I’m going to have to step up my game just to keep up. Damn you, Saima!’

  Khurrum Rahman, author of the Jay Qasim series

  ‘It’s an amazing piece of work and very timely… An amazing sense of place and time. I’m sure it’s going to be a sensational debut.’

  Lesley McEvoy, author of The Murder Mile

  ‘Blown away by the intricacy of such a clever, complex plot and the sense of unease.’

  Huma Qureshi, author of How We Met

  ‘Jia is incredibly compelling without being simply likeable. It’s a joy to read a book set in Northern England that does not veer into cliché. It’s so good on motherhood, morality and gender.’

  Nell Frizzell, author of The Panic Years

  ‘Saima Mir reinvents the gangster genre with dark lyrical prose that explores trauma, being an outsider, white privilege and revenge. Jia Khan is the enigmatic female lead we have been waiting for. I loved this book and can’t wait to see whom Jia visits her vicious yet calculated brand of justice on next.’

  L V Hay, author of The Other Twin

  ‘The Khan is a dark, gripping thriller that subverts the usual “women as victims” narrative of crime fiction. Mir’s writing is complex and evocative and The Khan is a fantastic read, sure to catch you in its clutches and not let you go until the final, heart pounding pages.’

  The Bookbag

  ‘Just fantastic… Take a bow Saima Mir, you have nailed it.’

  Surjit’s Books Blog

  ‘This is an excellent debut and hopefully the start of a fantastic new series! Absolutely loved the ending, great new author to follow right from the beginning, I feel this could be a real eye opener of a series. It’s certainly going to keep you on the edge of your seat.’

  Fiona Sharp, Bookseller

  THE KHAN

  SAIMA MIR

  To Ami and Abu, thank you for putting my happiness above the gossip.

  However dirty and coarse his hand he will stretch it to a king for a hand-shake. However meagre his meal he will invite an emperor to share it.

  The Pathan, Ghani Khan

  PROLOGUE

  The frayed fabric of the black niqaab scratched at her nose and she raised her hand to adjust it, bringing it taut over her lips. She hurried on. The setting sun worried her. She would be late for work.

  Broken syringes and greying condoms lay spent, caught between the pavement and the road, trying to disappear into the sewers beneath. Engine oil mixed with rain pooled around them and spread into the gutter.

  Ahead of her a new Bentley waited, its engine purring gently. Further up and across the road a bruised, blonde working girl leaned into a sheenless VW Golf. Hidden behind grubby old textile mills, this forgotten strip of land equalised rich and poor. They all came here. From near and far. To have their cars looked at and their bodies serviced.

  The young Muslim woman’s eyes, watchful, hollow and kohl-rimmed, moved from lamp post to lamp post and then to street corner. For one brief moment her resolve weakened and she considered turning around and heading home, but then she remembered the Final Demand letter her mother had handed her as she’d been leaving and something tightened in her stomach.

  Sakina, her name was, and as she pulled her arms tight around herself, hoping their warmth would melt some of the hardness that had set in, she reminded herself of its meaning: serenity. ‘Bas thorai saal hor nai putar,’ her mother had told her, her tone as gentle as her coarse Punjabi would allow. ‘Once your brother finishes university he will take care of everything.’ But only Sakina knew what those few years were costing. She was paying with more than money for the university fees, rent, bills and bread her family needed. Her father’s death had come suddenly and he hadn’t had time to make provision for his wife and children. He had been a good man and she missed him with an all-encompassing heaviness in her heart. He had always been proud of Sakina and she wondered what he would have thought of her now.

  But there was little time to stop and contemplate such things today. Quickening her pace, she stepped over the shadow of a short, stocky man who was leaning against a blackened wall. He sucked on a cigarette, pulling smoke into his fat fist as he spoke to the driver of the Bentley. Sakina walked past him. He paused as if recognising her and then offered his ‘salaam’. She nodded in acknowledgement and crossed the road.

  The red heels of her shoes clicked hard; they weren’t made for cobbles. The blonde prostitute was also struggling to balance on the stones. Brushing back her hair, the hooker rubbed her hand suggestively up her thigh, her small skirt leaving little to the imagination. She leaned into the driver’s window of the car, the skirt rising further up her thighs, revealing the marks left by previous clients.

  Sakina stole a glance at the punter in the Golf as she passed, measuring him up, taking in his cropped black hair, pock-marked cheeks and the blue-green tattoo on the side of his head. There was something menacing about him, something that made her take the black satin of her niqaab and pull it tighter over her painted lips. He turned and looked back at her, his empty eyes burning right through her, as if he could see what she looked like under her purdah. She hurried on.

  Realising she was about to lose another customer, the prostitute swore loudly at Sakina. ‘That’s right, why don’t you just fuck off? Bloody ISIS lover.’

  Her words backfired and her potential client looked at her in disgust. ‘Ladies shoun’t talk like that,’ he said, peeling her fingers off his car and drawing up the window.

  She stood her ground, refusing to leave. ‘Aw, darlin’, don’t be laike that. For some dirty Paki?’

  But the driver had made up his mind and he turned the key in the ignition, the car edging forward slowly and hugging the curve of the kerb. When he reached the 620 bus shelter where Sakina was waiting, he switched off the headlights and rolled down the window, the engine still letting its readiness be known. The sun had now buried itself deep into the ground; the only light came from the street lamp next to Sakina, spotlighting her in its orange glow. She tried to look past the man, focusing on something, anything, in the distance. His smile remained fixed. She turned away, but not before catching a glimpse of the purple bank notes he was holding. She turned back, watched as he counted the cash slowly and deliberately. She looke
d at his face again, making a mental note and itemising his features as she’d been taught to do by the other girls. She eventually stood up, walked to the car and climbed in. The punter leaned across the leather seat and respectfully helped her adjust her seatbelt, breathing her in as he did so.

  ‘You brown girls are hard work,’ he told her, ‘but your smell alone is worth it.’

  Sakina pulled down her niqaab and smiled. She lifted the folds of her black burqa to cross her legs, revealing thin, red leather stilettos and dark olive skin. The man grinned. He loved this city.

  CHAPTER 1

  His forehead touched the worn patch of his mat as he prayed. Deep in supplication, Akbar Khan whispered the Arabic phrases he’d been taught as a child, invoking blessings on the Prophet, praising Allah and calling on His infinite mercy. The old man moved back to the sitting position, his knees now folded under him, and adjusted the tan-coloured woollen hat covering his black hair. He wore it as a sign of respect and honour to his people. It reminded him of how far he had come; its presence kept them in his prayers. The day he had taken it from the rebel soldier was still fresh in his mind, even though more than half a century had passed since he came across the body as he played in the street.

  A single thought flickered through his mind and stole him from his prayers. He scratched his clipped beard and made a note to ask his wife to pick up a box of Bigen from the Pakistani grocery shop nearby. The dusty streets and winding walkways of his homeland may have been decades behind him, but the grey-and-orange packaging of hair dye, like the hat, was another reminder of his birthplace, and one of the few constants in his life. The hair dye, the hat, a beaten brown leather suitcase that used to rest above an old cupboard in his father’s house, and odd memories: these were all that remained of those times. He had heard that suicide bombers had destroyed much of his home town. He had heard that the women cried blood and the children played with Kalashnikovs, and though his Pukhtun blood meant it was not in his nature to take much to heart, he wept for Peshawar.

  He slid his hands from his knees to the faded pink of the prayer mat once again and sank into the sajdah. Prostrating before his God, he gave thanks for the cotton kameez of his youth, the only one he’d owned then, and for the row upon row of suits and shalwars and chadors and chappals that were housed in the wardrobe in his home here in England. His wardrobe was larger now than the house he’d been born in, the house where he had watched his parents die.

  Akbar Khan knew well the harsh realities of life, realities that had branded him and defined his path. He knew that standing alone in the wilderness of despair, shunned by God, men often found themselves contemplating dangerous things. When children writhed in hunger, their mothers suppressing their screams, when debt collectors knocked on doors, when elderly parents with eyes full of dead dreams turned to you for hope when you yourself had none, you had to find a way to keep standing. Carrying the burden of family, their hopes bearing down, men turned to cigarettes and beedi, and all methods of intoxication, to escape the reality of poverty and despair…even when that intoxicant dried up their veins and ate up their souls. And it was through this deep understanding of man’s struggle that Akbar Khan had found himself supplying substances of all criminal classifications. And as he stood before the God of Abraham and Moses, of Jesus and of Muhammad, Akbar Khan felt his heart to be unblemished, because he knew he was providing for his people and fulfilling their needs.

  That battered old suitcase on the shelf above his starched, crisp shirts belonged to another Akbar and another Khan. One that he had long since buried to serve his people.

  He turned his head to the right and then to the left – ‘Asalaam-o-alaikum wa rahmatullah’ – praying for prosperity and peace in the world. The world he inhabited believed the Khan would never bow before another man. It was a necessary belief. Akbar Khan understood this well. He knew that people would be prepared to ignore the flaws of their masters if they believed their icons were born to serve a higher purpose. Because people were weak and truth was only for the brave.

  He reached over to roll the prayer mat up and then stopped, running his fingers over its faded patches. The rug needed replacing, worn away at the place where his forehead touched it in prostration and frayed where his feet rested when he stood; it served as a reminder of all the nights he had spent in prayer. Especially after having someone killed. And there had been many such nights. Akbar Khan’s business interests led and fed the city and most of its people. They would not survive without him. Those who called his dealings ‘illicit’, his associates ‘criminal’ and his methods ‘illegal’, what did they know about hunger? What did they know about survival? About seeing the life leave your sister, tiny in your arms, as you weep and beg the doctor to save her but he coldly turns away because you cannot pay his fees?

  He picked up the prayer beads from the table beside him and as he did so he noticed his hands were those of an old man. They had not aged as well as his face. The skin covering his long, slim fingers was almost translucent; a tiny brown liver spot nestled between his thumb and forefinger. The world had pointed fingers at him his entire life, and it had judged him harshly. He knew he had made mistakes and would one day have to answer for them. His own daughter had cursed him, demanded that life extract payment for her loss. How could he expect the rest of the world not to? He wondered how much more he owed on the debt, and how much of his blood others had demanded. He sighed deeply as he considered all this and more. His decisions had been reasoned and measured and coloured by knowledge not held by those who sat in judgement. Prayer bead to prayer bead he read the Ayat-ul-Kursi. The verse had served him well and allowed him to reach old age. He was acutely aware of the ripeness of this time. He knew that it would be over soon, and he would not need to carry the demands of the world alone for much longer. There came a point in every life when another was needed to lean on, someone stronger, younger, one who was ready. Akbar Khan had arrived at that point, and now he waited for the other to join him.

  The room was almost in darkness now. The house was silent, the only sounds coming from the storm outside. A loud crash startled him and he turned to see the branches of the heavy apple tree that reached up to the house thrashing against the bedroom window. It had grown fast and become unruly in the last twenty years. The gardener had advised it be chopped down before its roots destroyed the foundation of the house but Akbar Khan had resisted. The sound of its branches tapping on his window helped him sleep, as did the pies his wife made from its fruit every summer, a delicious taste he’d acquired in the early days of his arrival in this country. But now the time had come to heed the gardener’s advice; the tree would be cut down after the wedding. Akbar Khan watched as its boughs bent low, so heavy with fruit that some touched the ground. They bowed lower than all the branches of all the other trees in the garden without damage to themselves, just as the Khan, laden with power and knowing just how to wield it, prostrated himself before his Maker.

  He prayed aloud; the sound of his voice brought with it clarity of thought. ‘I have made mistakes, my Allah. I have made them knowingly, willingly, and in the cloak of darkness, but you know why I have done the things I have… The world does not need to witness the birth of another Akbar Khan. Do not let my sacrifice go to waste, my Lord,’ he said.

  He brought the beads to his eyes before kissing them and putting them aside. He folded up the prayer mat and moved to the bed. His wife slept soundly, the kind of sleep that is brought on by warm milk, turmeric and blessed ignorance. Her children would be together tomorrow and the preparations for their arrival, the desire to fulfil their every whim, had exhausted her.

  How many years had it been since all the children had been under this roof? Akbar Khan could not remember… Fifteen, perhaps? Sixteen? Sixteen years since his daughter Jia had made a necklace of arms around him and discussed her plans? She had called him her ‘Baba jaan’. But the ‘jaan’, the life, was leaving his old bones and he needed to make peace with his stronges
t-willed child. There were things to discuss and things to reveal. Time had taken too much; it could not be allowed to take any more. Tomorrow, he would start anew. Tomorrow, all his children would be together, all but one.

  CHAPTER 2

  In the end it wasn’t the drug cartels, the prostitution rings or the money laundering that made Jia Khan leave her father’s home. It wasn’t the various fraud cases, it wasn’t the police raids, and it wasn’t even the fact that her father was head of the city’s biggest organised crime ring, the Jirga. It was simply a matter of a broken heart.

  The sound of the podcast helped numb her mind to the day she’d had. Defending guilty men left her devoid of feeling and in need of the kind of understanding that comes from family. But this wasn’t something she was ready to admit to herself, or to anyone else. She needed no one. This independence had been hard won and she bore the scars of battle.

  Solace in the arms of a man or at the bottom of an expensive bottle of wine – the traditions of the successful circles she frequented – were not for her. She needed the ordinariness of life to restore order. Dressed in black lounge clothes, a cashmere blanket waiting for her on the couch and the vegan take-out on speed dial, she let the normality of the evening seep in. The dulcet tones of Reza Aslan came on, as Metaphysical Milkshake asked its listeners, ‘Why are we so lonely?’ The room was warm; the soft scent of Jo Malone filled the air. Candles were dripping on to the windowsill, rivers of wax pooling from one to the other and setting to form islands. Their light was the only kind she could tolerate at the start of a migraine.

  Her friend’s Pakistani grandmother who’d visited had asked, ‘Yahan kya bijli bahut jaatee hai?’ They’d laughed at the suggestion that electrical companies might cut the power to London homes. It was a regular occurrence in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar, done to avoid placing an excessive load on the generating plant, but here among the tenants of Jia’s Knightsbridge apartment building, it would have caused uproar.